Slip inside this handsomely appointed Korean restaurant with frosted-glass windows, Brazilian cherry floors, and an open kitchen, and you’ll forget you’re in a strip mall.
Meals begin with generous plates of panchan, which include standards such as kimchee but also items like marinated Asian pear, its acidity balancing a rich blood sausage accompanied by seasoned dipping salt. Soups and fresh produce are standouts—yook kae jang combines both in a spicy broth with shredded beef and rice noodles. Sul leung tang, a creamy broth stewed from beef bones, is cooked for 48 hours in a gamasot, or traditional metal cauldron. Even a simple dish of stir-fried kimchee, shredded pork, and tofu produces waves of intensity and flavor.
For all the dozens of Korean restaurants in the area, including several terrific ones in Annandale, Gamasot is as good as it gets.
Open daily for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Ann Limpert joined Washingtonian in late 2003. She was previously an editorial assistant at Entertainment Weekly and a cook in New York restaurant kitchens, and she is a graduate of the Institute of Culinary Education. She lives in Petworth.
